Harrison's and while this is an excellent novel, I do prefer her more contemporary works. Her characters, especially the women, are of mythological proportion, more archetypical than three dimensional, and extremely mysterious - although I find Bigelow to be quite realistic. Kathryn Harrison's language is richly metaphorical, especially when she describes the Alaskan landscape as seen through Bigelow's eyes. The Seal Wife, is a finely detailed, well-researched historical fiction that concerns the development of scientific technology before WWI, turn-of-the-century Alaska, and the growth of one man's character. No matter how successful his work is, however, he finds no peace of mind.
Kathryn harrison the kiss excerpt professional#
The narrative focuses as much on Bigelow's inner obsession with the Aleut woman, as on his professional passion for charting the weather, with "recording a narrative that unfolds invisibly to most people." Unbeknownst to Bigelow, his newfound success with the kite has made a name for him in Anchorage as a scientific innovator. The kite and his documentation also serve to distract him from his emotional pain and loneliness. He designs and constructs an enormous kite to take temperature readings thousands of feet above the earth, which will enable him to prove his theory. His dual obsessions with the meteorological project and with the Aleut woman continually vie for first place in his mind and with his energy. He hypothesizes that a great current of air sweeps in a circular fashion from the poles to the equator and back again, causing the air high over the poles to be warm, and the air over the equator cold. The young scientist originally accepted his low paying job because it would give him the opportunity to prove a meteorological theory he had long been obsessed with. An introverted, sensitive man, Bigelow does not fit in with the coarser men from town and so he is left virtually alone. However, his fixation with the missing Inuit woman continues and follows him into his dreams. She stammers so violently that she communicates only through written notes. He temporarily becomes involved with a shopkeeper's daughter, who sings, but is unable to speak. He is devastated by the Aleut's disappearance. And he is shattered.īigelow, begins to drink and look for sexual pleasure with other women, mostly local prostitutes, to ease his pain. She possesses herself." This makes him want her all the more. However, she allows him to watch her "as intently, as much and as long, as he wants and the reason for this comes to him one night. Although he speaks to her, he never knows whether she understands him. He knows nothing about the woman, about her life, her history, not even her name. There is a woman, called the Aleut, who lives in a frame house on the mud flats outside of Anchorage. Descriptions of the physical world, like the one above, provoke one to wonder whether the landscape is depicted from a real life perspective or from an emotional one, a reflection of Bigelow's inner world? He doesn't think he has mastered the "required optimism" to do so. He questions whether he can survive here.
Kathryn harrison the kiss excerpt windows#
"The Alaskan sun remains unknowable, every day a new prank, pulling along its bows and parhelia and other odd, errant optical paraphernalia, too lazy and distracted to achieve altitude, rolling along the tops of mountains, infusing the icy fog with a strange and sullen greeny glow." In his solitude, Bigelow sees all matter of surreal phenomena from his observatory windows which he would have never before called weather. He must find additional work to survive life in the harsh Arctic climate, where below freezing temperatures and 20 hour-long winter nights present a major challenge to one's sanity. Unfortunately, due to the department's new budget, the young man barely earns a living wage.
Perskie OCT 30, 2005)īigelow Greene, a twenty six year-old meteorologist from the Midwest, is hired by the Weather Bureau in 1915 and sent to the frontier boomtown of Anchorage, Alaska, to set up an observation station. ( Jump over to read a review of The Kiss)
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